


subluxate, dislocate, replace

by Sovin



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Chronic Illness, Disabled Character, Family Issues, Found Family, Friendship, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 04:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11028849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sovin/pseuds/Sovin
Summary: Chronic illness is hard, is lonely, is exhausting. Joly isn't used to being believed or supported, though he's used to hard and unrelenting work. The friends, those are a surprise. So is the self-trust. He's working on it.





	subluxate, dislocate, replace

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer, disclaimer, etc.
> 
> Because there absolutely needs to be more fic about disability and connective tissue disorders and friendship and Joly. If you like talking about these things, you should definitely stop by  
> [my tumblr](https://www.sovinly.tumblr.com) and do so!

The first year Joly spends in Paris is long and lonely.

He comes out of lyceé with a firm idea of what he wants his life to look like and throws himself into head first. Though, to be honest, Joly’s known what he’s wanted to be since he was a teenager, since, contrary to what everyone thinks, before he even had a diagnosis. He’s going to be a doctor.

And it’s not that it makes him better than the others starting out, eager young adults who eye the plethora of choices before them without knowing which they’ll pick. Joly likes to think he’s not a dick. He’s a fun guy, he enthusiastically chatters with classmates, he makes _friends_.

It’s just that they’re not that close and he still feels at the edges. Classes require effort and some days, every step is a dagger in his bones, his knees feel constantly on the edge of shattering, and Joly is so, so tired, exhausted enough that his fingers seize around his pens, that all he can do is take himself home some afternoons and pour himself into bed.

At first it was a relief more than anything, to have a name to the aches in his joints and his bones that lay him low, leave him gasping, and it still sends a sick barb of vindication for every time he's been scolded over not enjoying physical activity or being slow on stairs or told that his knees are _fine_. But knowing the name doesn’t make it all affect him any _less_. The braces and heatpacks help ease it, a little. The cane helps too, makes it so that every step isn’t a staggering slump, the sunburst pain of his knees migrating to the dull ache of his hips.

His doctors told him he should pursue a profession easier on his body than the one he has planned, that there was nothing more they could do. Even watching Joly haul himself up into the train, his parents watched him like they were looking for lies in the ways he moved. His eldest sister smiled as she told him there would be no shame in switching to a different career track.

All it’s ever accomplished is to make Joly stand more firm in his convictions of becoming a doctor, a good one, one who will _listen_ to his patients and treat them more as people than specimens. He wants to take their pain away, wants to see them smile and to see them laugh. It’s _important_ , even when he doesn’t tell people about the way he’s been made to feel small and insignificant, the way he wants to find the confidence of self-advocacy again. He’s unalterably sure that this is where he ought to be.

But the thing is that the university isn’t much better, where he feels their eyes on him, trailing the cane, flicking from it to his face. Back. Forth. They crack jokes that for once don't make him laugh, but he’s patient enough to explain why he uses his cane with the hand opposite the worse leg and makes his own, cleverer jokes about having his dominant hand free and puns when he can. Still, it wears. It wears and it wears and he just wishes to make someone laugh, for once, with him.

He does, when someone stumbles over the table he's taken for breakfast and into his soul. Joly laughs at the look on the man's face - part resigned, part comically panicked - and only smiles wider when he laughs as well, helping him tidy the table and mop up sloshed coffee. Charmed already, Joly invites him to sit, and Lesgle does. The conversation sits easy between them, laughter and joking chatter hardly ever lapsing at all into stilted small talk.

Lesgle is a handsome man, in his way, already balding but tall and dark-skinned and bright eyed, cheerful at his own misfortune, specializing in law at the urging of his parents but more entertained by the life outside the classrooms. Only when it begins to edge toward afternoon does he rise, offering his arm to Joly jauntily.

Joly tries not to bite at his lip, because until now the cane was tucked out of sight in the crook of the chair's arm, but he refuses to be embarrassed. So he leverages himself up with only a touch of difficulty, hand grasped tightly around the comfortably familiar curve of the handle as he watches Lesgle's face.

His eyes flick down once, then back to Joly's face, and there's no question or flinch there, and he just switches the arm he's offering out.

It eases something in Joly's chest, sly little smile twisting his mouth as he looks up at the other man and says, "This is Émile. He holds me up."

Lesgle bursts into laughter again, easy and friendly, trying to keep a straight face when he replies. "I guess you could say he's always there for you?"

Joly can't help it; he giggles and beams up at Lesgle, accepting the proffered arm with a surprising amount of dignity. "You could say that!"

It's wonderful and easy, in a warm and unfamiliar way, and Joly clicks with Lesgle like he has never clicked with anyone before. It’s also the first time that someone starts to pay attention to the warning signs, gently there whenever Joly does or doesn't realize the fatigue or the anxiety sneaking up on him. For the first time, it feels like he isn't in this alone, and the feeling is amazing and heart breaking all at once, and he wouldn't trade it for the world.

They steal kisses and lazy afternoons and long roving walks and midnight runs for food, and Joly's cane acquires scratch marks like never before and he treasures each of them.

Friendship must exist on some sort of exponential curve, because it’s not long after that Lesgle gets to know a young man in his ethics class and introduces Joly. Courfeyrac is a genial sort, who snorts in laughter at Joly's cane puns but doesn't seem to feel comfortable enough to make his own, and though he almost starts to reach for it, absently, as if it were just another object to fidget with, he stops himself with a sheepish look. It's enough to put him back in Joly's good graces, and Lesgle grins broadly. Courfeyrac invites them to a group meeting and there's nothing to do but accept.

Enjolras greets them politely and with a fire in her eyes, shaking both of their hands firmly, never makes a comment on their clear togetherness or Joly's cane, and Joly thinks he could like these people. Combeferre, eyes bright with intelligence and sharp, turns out to be a wheelchair user and shares with Joly the faint head tip of those who ally themselves invisibly along a careful line before he and Lesgle are off on a spinning chat about the history of legal terms. Bahorel hurricanes in all of five minutes later, and he is loud and jovial and accidentally gives Lesgle a bloody nose, but laughs with him and Joly both in the aftermath.

The next few months bring stiffness and pain and meds that aren't working as well as they used to, and Joly shudders through the nights in his bed, bearing it. But they also bring Feuilly and his hard work and clever hands and determination, as well as wistful, fervent Jehan with his poetry and words and kindness.  That almost seems to make up for it.

And Bossuet tries, he does, but Joly feels so inevitably, damnably guilty that there's nothing to be done, and he tries to let him help but still ends up spending nights alone, curled up in a painful ball in his bed, existing through the pain and letting out frustrated whimpers, gasping when joints crack as he shifts. It's not anyone's fault, particularly, when they can't understand, but it aches.

At least, it aches until Bahorel texts them one night, asks if he can bring around his new boxing partner for drinks. Bossuet and Joly share a look and a shrug, because, well, why not? The more the merrier. And so Bahorel shows up when they've been there an hour with Grantaire, who somehow manages to be impossibly ugly and impossibly attractive at the same time and is snickering over puns with them in five minutes.

"This is Émile," he tells Grantaire, who has just told them to call her R, brandishing his cane and barely managing not to smack Lesgle with it. Or to jostle the fingers he just managed to relocate. "He’s always there for me. Y'know, never lets me fall. I'm very glad of his support."

The woman beams at Joly like he's the most brilliant thing she's heard all day, then grins, swinging her leg up - very flexibly - above the table and yanks her trouser leg up, revealing the intricate technology of a prosthesis. "I guess you could say you've got a leg up on the rest of us!"

Joly beams back at her and they collapse in breathless laughter, trading puns back and forth until Bahorel roars with good natured laughter. "C'mon, c'mon, something else, let us join in."

"Yeah," Grantaire says, sly grin twisting her mouth. "I guess the puns are getting kind of lame."

And it's part the pun and part that someone else _gets_ it that has Joly giggling helplessly into Bossuet's shoulder. If there was any doubt his boyfriend likes this new addition, it ceases when Bossuet grins, broad and bright, one arm slung around Joly's waist, and says, "Oh, we're keeping you."

They make for a cheerful group, and it eases Joly's long and weary and worthy hours of studying to have them all. He feels, for the first time, like he's part of something wonderful, and it's the best thing, it really is. He adores them all, loves the way they try so very hard to be good people and to produce change in the world, and the world feels a little clearer for it.

Joly finds himself advocating and arguing and speaking to people who care, who like him not only when he is useful or funny, but think he is worth listening to. It is one of the things that made him stay, this idea that everyone can have a voice, and Enjolras' words are inspiring.

Eventually, he calls his parents.

"I'm dating someone," he says, and tries to let all the joy that Lesgles brings him fill up his voice. "His name is Lesgles, and he's very charming."

"Oh," says his mother, and she pauses, surprised, but she congratulates him and asks tentative questions about him and listens, and then she asks, before they hang up, if he's still using the cane, if he's doing better.

Joly's throat closes up and even the anxious wailing of his brain can't speak up and spin that into something catastrophic, too paralyzed by a sad sort of fear. He tries for a smile and wonders if it sounds as falsely cheery as he feels. "I've been having a good few weeks, but the cane's still helping. I'm worried about the strain of flu going around."

She lets him change the subject, but Joly’s heart keeps stuttering against the confines of his ribs.

That night, Bossuet doesn't come home to find him curled up on the bed, because Joly feels too numb for tears. That comes a week later, when the pain is paralyzing whether he stays still or moves and this isn't _fair_ that he can hurt so much, feel so stiff and sore and broken.

"Hey," Bossuet greets, brushing down Joly's hair with soft fingers. "Do you need any of your medications? Heat or ice? Tea?"

"I've taken what I can. Heat, please? And no, thank you," Joly says, and he closes his eyes, because it hurts too much in ways he can't describe, like someone has run into him on their bike and sent him sprawling but it has been like that for _days_. He's so tired.

Bossuet leaves, then returns and settles the homemade heatpacks on Joly's knees, another on the small of the back, then climbs into bed and gently shifts so Joly can rest his head on his leg. Joly smiles at him painfully, and Bossuet grins back, slowly starting to run his fingers through Joly's hair, massaging little circles on his scalp.

"I'm sorry," he says, deep voice gentle. "I'm so sorry that you're in pain."

It's not much, maybe, but that's what Joly wants to hear right now. So he grins a little and pats Bossuet's other knee, too fatigued and foggy and _tired_ to do anything more. It takes a few hours, but he falls asleep, and Bossuet still hasn't moved away.

Eventually, Joly finds pain medications that help more. He's needed them for a while, and he wants to scream, sometimes, feels it building in his chest like an impending cold. There are too many doctors who don't _listen,_ or who understand one part but never the whole. So he redoubles his efforts in his classes and pours energy into the various efforts of Les Amis even though he’s drained and exhausted and each morning drags at his bones and his fingers cramp from note taking and washing his hair is a tiring, painful trial some days.

It’s muddled, a monotony, and he tries to keep breathing, to keep looking for flashes of watercolor brightness.

Musichetta flutters at the corner of his eye. She turns to him in a chemistry class with a flash of a smile that rounds her cheeks and curves her brows as she replies to one of his comments with a subtle little pun, her eyes sparkling with good humor as they get to chatting.

Musichetta is beautiful, curvy, and unashamed, and she is brilliant, a marine biology student. Her brown eyes brim with intelligence and she's witty; she quotes and comments in a way that makes him want to introduce her to Grantaire. But more than that, he wants to introduce her to Bossuet. They'd had that conversation when they'd first gotten together – agreed that someone else could be a possibility - Joly will never get over how perfect Bossuet is. So he does.

It goes splendidly. They click together in a strange and wonderful way, almost without thinking about it, though they talk, in the comfortably worn couches by a window of a coffee-shop, where Bossuet’s elbow settles in the grooves of the windowsill and the gauzy curtains shiver like Musichetta’s curls. Joly cradles his café au lait in his hands and lets its warmth radiate all the way up his arms.

She slips into their lives so easily, cheerful and cheeky, and it’s a negotiation almost complete. Joly hates to think of it like a test because it’s _not_ , but he holds his breath the first time he has to cancel on a date because he’s dislocated his elbow and it _hurts_ and he’s too exhausted to go out and it would be too painful and too much. Musichetta clicks her tongue in a quiet sympathy, but she doesn’t get upset or even insist on coming over. Instead, she tells him that she hopes tomorrow goes better and asks if she can bring anything by, and that if not, he should text her and Bossuet for coffee another day.

Joly laughs, even though it makes his ribs shift and catch painfully, and promises that he will. And he will, because it’s a relief, and a release of tension he hadn’t realized was weighing so heavily.

When he looks over, he finds Bossuet waiting with a gentle and knowing smile, and Joly smiles back. Bossuet makes him tea and plugs in his laptop charger before heading out to let Joly curl up in bed and watch trashy television shows in peace. And then, a few days later, when it hurts less to breathe and his toes have stopped cracking in and out of place each time he curls them, they call up Musichetta.

As it turns out, Musichetta not only likes the two of them, she likes Les Amis even as she dryly points out the gender imbalance in the group, and she also likes Grantaire, and not only because Grantaire listens to her complaints and cheerfully tows her friend Cosette along to the next meeting. Cosette is lovely, too, and gets on well with them, chatting happily about fashion with Bahorel even if she seems a little quiet, a little shy. Apprehensive, maybe, but she has a little light to her eyes that Joly likes. It’s the little wildness those closest to him seem to have, cheerful and free as a bird on a branch in Bossuet, nearly literary in Musichetta, ancient and Dionysian in Grantaire.

Joly wonders, softly, if there’s a wildness in him as well.

It’s what gets him through the weeks, these friends of his and the way they jostle and chatter, the way that they seamlessly shift to fold him in with them. He is thankful beyond belief and it’s a balm for the doors that slam in his face and the thousand paper cuts of thoughtless comments.

It’s an easy lull until Bossuet shows up at the apartment while Joly's working on homework and no one else is around, his face smudged with soot and a bag over his shoulder.

"What happened?" Joly asks, concerned but not fretting just yet, used to Bossuet's odd luck. Still, he closes his textbook around his capped pen, pushes it to the side.

Bossuet shakes his head, rueful, and sits on the couch when Joly waves for him to do so. "So, my landlord tried to burn down the building to try to cash in on insurance. Luckily for me, I had my computer and was able to get all of my books, but as it turns out, the building's unstable, so here I am without a home again!"

Joly hisses, sympathetic, and reaches over to squeeze his knee. "I'm sorry. Are they going to pay you, at all?"

"Theoretically, but they already told me it's unlikely I'll see a penny." Bossuet tries to sound cheerful, but he mostly looks stressed and exhausted, already tired under the weight of it again.

"You can stay with me," Joly says, hand still gentle on Bossuet’s leg. His fingers twitch.

Bossuet frowns a little. "I don't want to impose. And I don't know when I'll be able to afford rent for a two person split, let alone one."

He clucks his tongue quietly, shifting closer across the couch, textbooks all but forgotten on the table. "My lease will be up soon, in just another month, you may as well stay here until then. And we've been half-joking on and off with R about how awesome it'd be for all of us to share an apartment. Maybe we should ask her for real, and see if Musichetta wants to come, too? It'd be a little more expensive, but split three or four ways, I think we could manage it."

"I just worry that we'd screw things up, moving so quickly," Bossuet admits, though his hand covers Joly's in silent thanks and appreciation.

Joly kisses his cheek. "I know. But you and me and Musichetta are solid enough friends, and Grantaire's our platonic soulmate, and we're gonna be _awesome_ , all of us. And I don't want you to have to worry about keeping your books and computer and self safe and dry and healthy again."

The tension floods out of Bossuet and he smiles, turning Joly's face up to kiss him. He tastes a little of smoke, and his eyes are soft when they part. This sincerity is vulnerability and Joly’s heart swells to be trusted with it. With him. "Thank you, Joly."

"It's what I do best," he says cheerfully, squeezing Bossuet's hand.

"Call a totally rad council meeting later?" Bossuet tosses out, easiness most of the way back in his smile, though still a touch of tired uncertainty.

Joly nods and then shoos him off to take a shower.

Unsurprisingly, the idea goes over well, and all four of them kind of end up sleeping in a pile on Joly's living room floor, waking in a tangle of limbs, and clearing out the fridge for breakfast. They maybe spend the day scouring papers and the internet for ads (though Joly knows that Grantaire will know someone who knows someone and the price will undoubtedly be excellent) and talking about all the ways that they're going to make it the best apartment ever.

Joly doesn't think he's ever felt happier, so light he’s sure he’s soaring, so light he keeps catching himself singing. So light the pain’s a dim awareness on a cellular level.

The feeling doesn’t fade, even on the days when he hurts down deep and the tiniest bones of his feet subluxate just enough to make walking a slow and stilted process, or the mornings when he has to wash blood out of the sink while brushing his teeth. It doesn’t fade, either, when Bossuet’s bad luck comes back to haunt him once more or the tragedies of the modern world pile against their striving. Somewhere, almost as though tucked between his palm and the handle of his cane, he’s found a place to store hope, right next to his conviction.

The world tumbles forward, the term’s end abruptly splaying itself at their feet.

Joly wakes up early, when the bed is silent and the light outside is grey and dim, and he finds Musichetta asleep at the table with her books and papers spread out in front of her. Joly touches her shoulder gently, with a smile as she stirs. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she replies, hiding a yawn behind her hand, her hair a frizzy halo of curls. “Sorry, I must have fallen asleep. Studying, you know.”

Joly clicks his tongue and kisses her forehead as gently as he can, braces himself against the table. “That’s what mornings are for. Do you want some tea?”

Musichetta nods, watching him with bleary eyes as he heads for the kitchen to put on the electric kettle. Joly returns with tea for both of them, taking the seat beside hers and smiling when they end up leaning against one another more than the backs of their chairs.

“These classes are exhausting,” she sighs. “I’m so tired of this, Joly. I just want finals to be over.”

He nods, and runs his fingers through her hair, learning to be careful of the tangles by now and not wanting to tug against them. And he understands, he does, because everything _aches_ but he can’t stop just yet, not until classes are done. “Yeah, I know. It sucks. But you can have cuddles this morning, and then this afternoon we can have a pile of studying?”

She smiles, just a little, and sighs deeply as she snuggles against his side. “Yeah, okay. I’ll quiz you on doctor stuff and you can quiz me on science stuff, and we’ll hear Combeferre’s sonic sighs of being tired of law revision from afar.”

Joly laughs and flexes his toes under the table until the largest one clicks audibly back into place. “You might say he’ll have to doctor his tea for some relief.”

Musichetta snorts, barely missing choking on her tea, and elbows him in the side, lightly enough not to hurt. “Now you’re just physician for puns.”

Unable to help it, he laughs, and they set there murmuring puns and drawing strength from one another. Soon enough, Bossuet will stumble out of bed and Grantaire will show up from somewhere, and the kitchen will come alive as they figure out something like breakfast. This really is the best idea, and Joly feels at home in a way that’s been missing for far too long.

They get him in the ways that he gets them, and so many times they never even have to talk to understand what’s going on. That doesn’t mean they don’t talk, of course, because assuming is a shitty thing to do, but it’s comfortable and comforting all the same.

All of them stumble through exams, even Grantaire, and spend a week draped on the couch watching Netflix and eating whatever’s at hand. Courfeyrac, still visibly exhausted from relentless finals, is the first to make overtures of recovery, inviting all of them out to brunch and even managing to find a time when Feuilly can join them.

Summer floats dazily ahead, heavy with the promise of rain and productivity. Les Amis de l’ABC draw in a deep breath, and wade into the thick of things wholeheartedly.

If Joly’s metaphorical feet are steady, his real ones are stung by summer, dredged with the weight of pushing and pushing and pushing, and he knows he isn’t alone, not the only one affected by stress and the turning seasons.

“Hey,” Joly says softly into the dimness of Grantaire’s bedroom, not surprised to see her curled up, all but hugging her leg to her chest. The scar neuroma again, he guesses.

“Hi,” Grantaire replies, but it sounds ragged, and that edges out any lingering thought of it just being a hangover. She looks tired, face wan and pale with pain, and Joly aches for her.

“Want some company?” he asks, and waits for the tiny nod before crawling into bed with her, letting Grantaire shift to cling onto him  and holding back. “Anything that would help?”

Grantaire shakes her head, pressing her forehead against Joly’s shoulder, inky curls a sweaty mess. Her fingers lock securely into the softness of his t-shirt, as tight as her voice. “Nah. I took all the pills I could, I just need to wait it out.”

“Lemme know if you want to borrow my TENs unit. I have extra electrodes,” he tells her, and curls closer. Lying down, he can feel the slow shifts of aching bones and joints, and it all hurts, sinking deeper in, fathomless under his skin. Gentle, he kisses the top of Grantaire’s head, instead.

“How’re you?” she asks Joly after a few long, silent moments, voice still heavy and raw with pain, but relaxing into it a little, not quite held so tense.

The nice thing with Grantaire is that Joly can always be honest. “It hurts. Dislocated my knee earlier.”

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Me too,” he whispers, and curls and stretches his fingers to snap them back into place before coiling them up against Grantaire’s shoulder, two quiet islands of agony in the dark, riding it out to the other side.

It doesn’t end, really, never _actually_ ends, just recedes enough to keep surviving. Recession, recovery – Joly doesn’t understand people who take “recovery” to mean “fixed,” no matter how often it’s used that way. It strikes him as a tactical term, to take back a bit of ground, which doesn’t mean he won’t lose it again. The landscape of metaphors he uses to explain and understand the way he lives his life is a shifting one, unsettled and incomplete.

Summer, at least, provides a reprieve from the medicalized view of it, except when he uses it to keep his parents at bay when they come up to Paris for a brief holiday. Instead, Joly shifts into the world of picnics and of politics, stretching his legs from a park bench on one day, and speaking about disability studies with Combeferre on the next. Or maybe the same, that happens sometimes.

Joly has stopped looking for pitfalls, at least among his friends. Stutters, of course, he’s made too many small missteps of his own to think that no one has nothing left to learn.

But when the subject of disability activism comes up in one of their more private gatherings, he takes a quiet census – Courfeyrac’s dyslexia, Combeferre absently rocking his wheelchair with one foot on the floor, the curve of Éponine’s orthoses against her bare calves – and doesn’t stiffen his spine.

It’s not the worst day for pain, but his hip isn’t settled in its socket and there’s the familiar pressure at the dip of his spine, which are both very distracting. Joly tunes out most of the conversation, listens to people talk about business accessibility in the city, frowning thoughtfully as he shifts his leg, hoping he can coax it back into place without much effort. It’s a good goal and it’s important, but there’s something about it that he can’t articulate that suggests they shouldn’t start here. He arches his back and his shoulders pop, but his hip just grinds a little more painfully.

Grantaire, of all people, raises her head from the table to say something. Usually she just listens if they’re on topic, head on her elbow, sometimes humming, not always intentionally but often things that will make Courfeyrac fling a pencil at her with half-meant irritation.

“Like that’s _really_ going to help long term,” Grantaire says, with a dismissive snort. Bitterness twists her mouth, but she’s not looking over at anyone as she speaks, still down at her hands as she gestures for emphasis. And she keeps talking, pointing out the futility of starting with accommodation of public businesses and the problems with such a grand scale.

Joly, leaning forward on the table, still fidgeting around his hip, listens absently. He doesn’t completely agree with her, either, but it pulls out his faint objection to the proposed starting point, gives him the sense of the shape of what might be a more productive plan instead, about public transport and accessibility. The pain’s distracting, but he’s almost worked his thoughts around to an interjection, when –

“It’s fine that you don’t want to engage,” Enjolras says, seizing a fractional gap in Grantaire’s words, sounding more exhausted than irritated, though there’s a severity to the line of her mouth. “We have plenty of times we talk about other things. But do you need to be actively unhelpful? It’s disruptive, and if you can’t at least respect us enough to stay quiet, you should go.”

“Fine,” Grantaire says at last, bitterly, her eyes going shaded and hard. Her mouth is thin with irritation as she rises. She storms out before anyone can move to stop her, bag slung over one shoulder with lethal grace, but she doesn’t slam the door as she goes. Musichetta, concerned and instantly on Grantaire’s heels, barely slips through before the door closes.

Enjolras’ breath leaves in a huff and she opens her mouth to speak and Joly is white-hot numb.

“No,” he says, quiet and sharp and cutting through the awkward silence. “No, that was _so not cool_.”

Enjolras looks over, surprised and taken aback. Any anger has gone from her now and she tilts her head, earnest in her confusion, and Joly wishes he didn’t want to tamp down his frustration for it.

Joly pushes himself back from the table and grips the handle of his cane, thumb running over the curve of it in agitation, and thankfully Bossuet doesn’t move to stop him. He almost can’t speak past the _disappointment_ in his throat.

“When I first came here,” he finally continues, unable to meet Enjolras’ eyes, unable to look around, hating the way hurt pools in his heart, “the one thing that really impressed me, that I loved, was that you didn’t ask. You didn’t even try to edge around the questions about my cane or my illness, you just accepted it and didn’t let it define me in your eyes, and I really, really thought you were different.”

He doesn’t like giving speeches, and his voice trembles, but he’s so _angry_ , so upset, so _hurt_.

“But apparently not,” he continues, voice rising and cracking a little. “Because you just _assumed_ that Grantaire had no reason to speak up, when she does, she just keeps it to herself. So, what? If I didn’t have a visible marker, would you question my right to speak too? Would you have been so kind and understanding, have listened to my opinions if _this_ wasn’t right here for people to see? Is disclosure of disability mandatory now?”

“Joly, I’m sorry,” Enjolras says, softly. Sincerely.

“I _know_ ,” he cries, flinging his hands up in frustration. “And I _know_ it’s annoying when she interrupts and talks shit, but that’s not what that _was_. And, like, do you think Combeferre or Éponine or I couldn’t have spoken up if we thought she crossed a line? You don’t _get_ to decide how we feel on the matter; that’s _so unfair_. I have a voice, and I can use it. And for what it’s worth, I didn’t say anything because I agreed with Grantaire! Haranguing a few businesses into being more accessible isn’t going to do much when we’re invisible to the public space, when we can hardly even _get_ there if we need to use public transport. It’s a hidden issue, and we need to change and challenge perceptions, and then maybe we won’t be as demonized when we ask for and demand accessibility. And I _get_ that Grantaire didn’t phrase it the most helpfully, but it’s _shitty_ that you assumed you got to arbitrate who speaks on this issue.”

He’s left trembling with adrenaline, watching as Enjolras’ brow creases, as understanding sweeps across her face.

“You’re right,” she tells him, as quiet, as earnest as ever. She glances to Éponine, to Courfeyrac, to Combeferre, encompassing them as well. “I’m sorry, that was poorly done of me.”

Joly just shakes his head, shrugging into his coat before pushing himself to his feet, braced against the table and his cane. A little knot of worry eases as Bossuet stands and gathers his things as well, following Joly toward the door in the still, stagnant silence of the room.

Enjolras takes half a step and Joly raises his hand, sad, because he _hates_ this, doesn’t want to be mad at his friend, and mostly he’s just… hurt, just tired. “It’s… I appreciate it. I do. But, can we please talk later? I just… I just need a bit.”

And to her credit, she nods and steps back, and Joly musters a smile for her before leaving, feeling the tension in his abdomen until they step out into the sunset and he can pull a shaky breath deep into his lungs.

“Well,” he says, looking almost sheepishly up at Bossuet. Already, he feels silly for the outburst.

Bossuet just grins back, though a little. “Well. Shall we go home and conduct Grantaire back to cheerfulness?”

Joly snorts softly, already feeling the start of a smile tugging at his mouth. “I think she might symphonize with us, yes.”

“We can baton down the hatches until it all blows over,” Bossuet suggests, grin blooming. “Good thing we aren’t even trying for tempo-rance.”

“That would certainly be a downbeat,” Joly replies, smile growing as his stomach settles. “Will the evening fit the dynamic?”

“I think,” Bossuet drawls, stretching out the word, “that it’s a _grand_ idea, we’ll be as majestic as the eagle, and sing a little song, or maybe get a little song to sing for us, and all have a jolly good time.”

Joly laughs, unable to help himself, feeling more even again. “That was _terrible_. You know how Musichetta feels about puns on her name, and I thought we hadn’t had the seduce-Grantaire discussion.”

“Not yet,” Bossuet allows cheerfully, slinging an arm around Joly’s shoulders. “Besides, I think if anyone’s seducing tonight, it’ll be R seducing us to drunkenness.”

“Well, in that case, lead on, Macduff,” Joly cries, swinging his cane up dramatically. “And then, bring out the drinks and lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries, “Hold, enough!””

Bossuet laughs, and shakes his head, and kisses Joly's temple. They walk home still chattering, and get Musichetta to help them coax Grantaire out of her bedroom and all get spectacularly drunk. In the morning, Joly wakes up in a tangle of his dearest friends, and only shifts enough for his ribs to stop being quite so squished and his tense muscles are stretched out.

Enjolras has left him a text, and though Joly’s heart feels scraped and tender, he replies. He accepts Musichetta’s jacket and the armor of kisses pressed to his cheeks and forehead, and goes out to meet her. There are lilac drapes in the airy windows of the tea shop they meet at, and while Joly usually appreciates its coziness, today it feels cavernous.

There’s already a cup of tea waiting across from Enjolras at the tiny corner table, and he’s going to guess it’s made up with honey and no milk. Joly sits down, tangling his leg up in his cane where it rests for the comfortable solidity of it.

“Hi,” Joly says.

Enjolras smiles very quietly, her blue eyes warm and alert. She’s not just here, she’s _present_ , and that clears some of the lump in his throat. “Hi.”

He appreciates that she doesn’t open with apologies, either. Joly rolls his wrists and cracks his fingers and wraps his hands around his tea cup, still not quite cool enough to drink, and sighs. “I know I put more on what you were saying yesterday than it really deserved. It probably wasn’t fair.”

She shrugs, her mouth turned in a thoughtful curve. “Well, I certainly didn’t do anything to tip the scales in my favor. You were right that my implications were unkind and, honestly, pretty shitty.”

Joly laughs, the weariness cracking open at her candor and unusual colloquiality. “Should I say the scales have fallen from your eyes? Seriously though, we’re cool. Grantaire can be grating and needling when she’s unhappy. I know it upsets you, and I know it can be way frustrating.”

“Sometimes,” Enjolras allows, letting her next thought steep as she sips her tea. “But I’ve known Grantaire long enough to know that she usually doesn’t actively poke people during meetings unless she’s really upset. And it seems like it’s something I should have known, that this conversation is one she has a stake in."

It’s not fishing for information, Joly knows Enjolras well enough to be sure of that. He can also see the faint, anxious knit to her brows, familiar from his own face. Across the table, he really shouldn’t just send a punny snapchat to cheer her up, so he nudges her foot with his own. “I mean, maybe? Grantaire’s a pretty private person. It’s not that she’s ashamed of it, or anything, it’s that she thinks it’s her business, not anyone else’s.”

There’s… a lot more to it than that, but that’s the sort of thing best left between Enjolras and Grantaire. Grantaire, who will probably not actually apologize to Enjolras, but who will probably take her pastries or homemade jam, and let her expression go sweet and soft when she listens to what Enjolras has to say. They’ll work it out.

“She’s not obligated to share it with me,” Enjolras agrees, but Joly thinks there’s something a little sore there. Not entitled, just that Enjolras values friendships and trust, and clearly feels upset about having upset an already precarious détente. “I’ll talk to her, though, and maybe let Combeferre run the next meeting.”

“Combeferre’s always a treat,” Joly says cheerfully. He takes a sip of his drink. “And I’m sure it’ll go fine. After all, I’ve accepted your apolo-tea.”

That makes Enjolras crack a brighter smile and even a hint of a laugh, and Joly feels his shoulders settle again.

Eventually, gently, things go back to normal. Or as much of normal as they can, considering everything – the busy summer and then the sudden press of projects and the classes that threaten to swallow up his life. He sits in classes and takes illegible notes, using sudden aches to review his anatomy in the back of his mind, and struggles to feel present when all the information is presented as though it’s outside their context. Pain, in the abstract. Everything feels like a desperate balancing act, like he's trying to do the plate spinning trick he used to know, in an attempt to keep it all going and going and going.

It's exhausting.

Joly barely keeps it from overwhelming him, though it’s not so long before he's laid out in bed with a cold. Musichetta helps him through it, though that's mostly because Bossuet' immune system wishes it had half the power of hers, and Joly smiles at her because he feels so loved and he never thought he could have this.

“It’s a fever, not a fervor, darling,” Musichetta says when Joly tries to babble his way through all of this, but her smile and eyes are sweet with understanding. “Let me get you some tea. How about some soup?”

“Soup sounds…” Joly fumbles, then laughs, creaky in his throat. “You’ll have to pun without me, I can’t think of them. Yes please soup.”

Musichetta laughs, darting a kiss to Joly’s forehead and smoothing back his hair. “You’ll soon be swimming in soup, no worries. Bathing in broth, even. It must be dire if you can’t do puns.”

“It’s a punishment,” Joly agrees, settling back into his pillows and muffling a coughing fit in his elbow before grinning weakly at her. He resettles the heat pack on his chest, wishing he had one the size of a blanket.

“See, you haven’t lost your touch just yet.” Musichetta pats his hand. “I’ll bring you some ibuprofen too, and tell you neat facts about crustaceans.”

Joly watches her go, fondly, and it almost eases all the aches in his bones.

The facts about crustaceans do cheer him up, and he’s feeling better by the start of the next week. Cosette, still sniffling herself, texts Joly for friendly commiseration, and he brings her some leftover soup. Jehan cheerfully regales him with folk remedies for illness when they meet for a late-night study break, and Joly laughs and feels expansive with affection. Bahorel and Courfeyrac promise a whirlwind weekend when he’s feeling up to snuff again, which makes him so warm it nearly hurts.

Still, his cold seems to summon the start of fall on its heels. Brisk winds whip through the streets, making the leaves and passers-by shiver, but even the grey and rain can’t dampen Joly’s spirits. End-of-term, though, that will do it. Sleep gets harder, and his fellow students brag-plaining about their scant three or four hours of sleep don’t understand that Joly needs nine or ten to really feel like he’s won back all of his spent energy. And if sleeping is hard, eating is hard. Fatigue and anxiety gnaw his appetite to nothing, and Joly subsists on peanut butter on crackers and handfuls of nuts and occasionally take-out when Éponine circles by campus to chivvy him out to dinner. After the blur of exams, Joly is quite ready to join Jehan for a few rounds of drinks and the rest of the TV series they’d fallen behind on, cheerily debating philosophy in between.

What he really wants is to hole up with his girlfriend and his boyfriend and watch movies and cook for one another and luxuriate in having time free from stress and demands on their time. But Joly’s agreed, with trepidation, to go home for Christmas, and he hopes it will go well.

It’s not like it could have happened anyway, he tries to tell himself. Musichetta and Bossuet are both going home for holidays as well, but he's already looking forward to them all coming back, to joining Grantaire and celebrating in their kitchen, low-key and lovely. Joly wants to see his cousins and the rest of his family, though, too, and he spends a week teetering between faint dread and whirlwinds of excitement as he does his best to find the perfect gifts, scouring facebook pages for ideas. By the time he's free to go home, back down to Saint-Étienne, Joly is weighed down with bags and his train ticket, collecting hugs and kisses when Bossuet drops him off at the train station, Musichetta already gone a few days before.

And it's so _nice_ to be home. The train is familiar as it rushes across the countryside, revealing terrain that Joly has spent his whole life knowing. Even the station, too overwhelming for his senses, carries a pang of the familiar. Everything back at his childhood home is as he remembers it, a welcoming and warm embrace of well known smells and decorations, festive and brilliant. His father kisses his forehead and his mother sweeps him in for a hug, and Joly feels so _loved_. Céline is home with her family across the city and Marion is visiting her boyfriend’s family this year, and their absence is a pang, but not a painful one. At dinner, when his parents ask after his studies, he chatters at them, unable to help it when he's so excited, and they do seem excited for him. When they don't even comment as he bows out to get some sleep, he hopes that maybe it will go well.

It does, mostly, it's just also _exhausting_. Joly is roped into shopping and cooking and cleaning the house before relatives stop by, and then he's put in charge of a miniature hoard of cousins and his nieces, and dragged out and around to be shown off to old family friends, and he's so tired. Everything hurts. His back is drawn tight like a bowstring. Each step is knives in his feet, but he hurries as much as he can so that he's not left behind, his ankles bending at the burden, calves straining.

And Christmas is lovely, even if he spends most of Mass in a daze, and most of the family celebrations fending off questions about his cane and how slowly he's moving. It hurts, unexpectedly, after all the gentle acceptance of Les Amis, to now feel each tiny dagger of dismissal alongside the ones in his joints, when each shift of a rib stabs at him. He's so tired.

But he smiles through it convincingly, and only gives in when they all go home, when he can take his medications and curl up under the blankets and breathe until his muscles unclench, when he finally tricks his body into falling asleep.

"I just can't believe you still need it," his mother says in the morning, mouth pursed as she nods toward his cane leaning against his chair as he sips his coffee. "Darling, if those medications help, you wouldn't need it anymore, would you?"

"They do help," Joly says, quiet, cowed, and sick to his stomach. His cane is covered with notches like scars, and he keeps himself from reaching out to run his thumb over the worn handle. He tries to hold his face confident and calm. "This does too. It's a good sign that it hasn't gotten worse, I mean."

His parents share a look, and set in, pingpongging their concerns back and forth, suggestions that he's heard a hundred times, ones that don't have any basis in anything because they just don't understand. Joly feels himself bowing under the weight of the onslaught, pressed back against the slats of the dining chair.

"- Maybe if you changed your diet, like Alain's daughter did-" his father says, hopeful and faux helpful.

Joly thinks of the six months of eating nothing with gluten, of how Bossuet and Musichetta cheerfully joined in, how even Grantaire hadn’t complained about altering her recipes, and how it hadn't made him feel any better but how interested he'd been to see if it would change anything. He thinks about his therapist, gently talking him through until he realized that he didn't need to doubt every symptom he had, discounting it out of hand, and suddenly his eyes are stinging with the threat of tears.

"Please stop," he says, and somehow manages to school his voice into something that doesn't waver. They stop, in synch, and stare at him, bewildered. "I'm managing it with my doctor, and we're doing what's best for me. Can we please talk about something else?"

"Alright," his mother says finally, but she looks startled and reluctant, almost hurt at his change in subject. Joly almost gives in, apologizes, but he doesn't.

It's too good to last, of course it is, because that afternoon it starts up again when he’s lowered his defenses in the living room, reading by the fire, and Joly tries to hold his shaky ground. It comes out sounding like a plea, but he’s _trying_. The pressure of their disbelief, their hope that he’ll be something he’s not, just builds and builds, the digs and questions that make him want to be sick, because it feels like his whole existence is in question, and Joly can’t _take_ it anymore.

He was expecting to stay for another three days, but he packs his things up, not fighting back tears even if he keeps them quiet. When the tears die down, he wipes his face until there’s not a trace of them left, picks up his bags, and limps, slow and steady, down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“I’m going home,” he says, and draws on every milliliter of courage his friends have offered out to him in actions and in love. Joly keeps his shoulders straight and his chin steady. “Thank you for having me. We can talk about Easter later.”

And before they can say anything, he keeps walking, out the door and down the driveway, stomach roiling, muscles clenched. The anxiety is roaring in his brain, tumbling him around, telling him he’s being childish and overreacting, that they’ll never take him or his illness seriously now. He’ll have to cancel coffee with Céline, and she’ll have to hear the whole story, and –

Joly takes a deep breath and tries not to stumble on the uneven gravel when his overworked knee momentarily gives way. He has a _right_ to be respected rather than interrogated. He thinks of Combeferre with his level voice and kind eyes saying, very softly, “My mothers never questioned what I told them I was feeling, actually – they were always careful to look things up or ask me questions instead,” and Musichetta cupping Grantaire’s face in her hands as she murmured, “If anyone tries to guilt you for doing what needs to be done for your health rather than evaluating their own actions, they’re more concerned with their feelings than for you and you were right to walk away.”

That doesn’t make it feel any easier, or better, because he _loves_ his parents and they love him, and he wants to make the same excuses, but he’s tried and tried to give them resources. It’s not on him that they’ve never used them, but that doesn’t make it hurt less. He’s only half a block away from the house when his father pulls up, and Joly shuts his eyes tightly.

“Adrien,” his father says, eyes unreadable behind his glasses. “I won’t argue with you, but will you at least let me drive you? It’s a long walk.”

Joly is bad at being angry. He nods, slowly, and climbs into the side seat, one bag at his feet and the other clutched to him. His father doesn’t say anything more, and the ride is tense, but at least he didn’t have to walk all the way to the station.

“Thank you for the ride,” Joly says, and wants to choke at the unfamiliar bitterness that boils up with the hurt and sadness in his throat. “I’ll text you when I get in.”

His father nods, and then, a beat later, awkward – “I’m sorry.”

It would be so easy to shake his head and over a too-chipper smile and say that it’s okay, that it’s alright. Joly nods tightly, thanks him again before he levers himself up to his feet and walks inside on legs as unsteady as his heart.

Only when he has his ticket in his hand, sitting and waiting, does he pull out his phone and send a text to his roommates, simple and without elaboration because it hurts too much to say more than <<I’m on my way home – be in tonight.>>

<<Chetta and I’ll have something on when you get back>> is all Grantaire sends back, too kind to ask why.

Joly texts his sister and then puts his phone on silent. He doesn’t look at it again until he’s three stops down the train line, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. When he glances at her reply, she mostly just seems concerned, and he promises he’ll call her later.

Anxiety sits a heavy lump in the pit of his stomach, and Joly can tell his heart’s still beating a little fast. Carefully, he breathes in and out, counting them off, and tries to keep the pattern up as he pulls up his texts.

<<Today has been a terribly bad day,>> he informs Combeferre, who may not have the same anxiety issues but who always cares. And with Combeferre, if he doesn’t get a reply, he knows it’s distraction, not a slight. <<Neat science trivia please?>>

He jiggles his knee while he waits for a reply, the landscape whipping by cold and lonesome at the corner of his eye.

Eventually, he receives a reply in the form of a video. Joly pauses his music and plays it, smiling immediately when he realizes it’s Combeferre sitting at the kitchen table, wearing a pair of safety goggles much too small for his face – child-sized, either his old ones from long ago or borrowed from a cousin – and holding a beaker of orangeish-red liquid. He’s improvised a volcano from what’s probably a vase and a hastily domed pile of discarded wrapping paper. Beaming at the slightly askew camera, Combeferre tips his vinegar into the volcano, which starts spewing forth colored foam.

“Inaccurate scientific models!” Combeferre cheers, throwing his arms up.

“ _Aimée_ ,” comes a voice from off-screen, exasperated and full of laughter, “What are you doing?”

Combeferre rolls the left wheel of his chair back, turning abruptly with a half-sheepish, half-startled expression, and the video cuts out.

Joly’s laughing halfway though, and his heart rises up in his throat. His friends make it so much easier to breathe.

<<Thank you,>> he texts back, <<and tell your moms I said hi.>>

He switches back to his music, but watches the video a few more times on the way home, and by the time he reaches Paris, he’s mostly just feeling tired and glad to be back. He catches the métro to the stop nearest home, and isn’t surprised when Musichetta meets him there and immediately opens her arms.

A well of tears nearly takes him over, but Joly suppresses them, dropping the handle of his bag to hug her tightly, clinging to the warm softness of her, comforted by the scratch of the cool grey wool of her collar and the faint non-scent of their laundry soap.

“Missed you!” Musichetta chirps, stealing a couple of quick kisses before they break apart. “Hello, starshine. How was your train?”

“Pretty good; Combeferre sent me the best video, I’ll show you guys when we get home,” Joly tells her, squeezing her hand briefly. “I missed you too! How are you?”

Musichetta reaches for Joly’s rolling bag, nudging her shoulder against his as she steps beside him. “I’m good! The family had my cousin drive me up and so sent me home with a whole big box of things. Lots of goodies to share!”

“Oh good, we’ll use them to combat the cold front,” Joly replies, smiling, as they start ambling for the exit, sticking off to the side so the few other people can hurry around them.

“Like seals,” Musichetta agrees, automatically and easily adjusting to his pace. “An adorable herd of seals. Only we’ll have sharp wits, not sharp teeth.”

“Or both,” Joly proposes. “Teeth that are meet for meat.”

“Vampire seals?” Musichetta asks, tilting her head. “Ooh, vampire selkies. Steal their skins, they suck your blood.”

Joly beams at her. “Love it, yes. Call Cosette, tell her it needs to be a romance novel immediately. I will storyboard it with stick figures.”

That makes her giggle, bantering with him about vampire selkie romances all the way down the darkened streets and into their apartment building. Inside, the warmth washes over him before they even make it to their door, and Joly’s travel-aching joints and cold fingers sting sharper, but he knows they’ll settle back to normal eventually.

Grantaire pokes her head out of the kitchen when they spill in the door, looking better than she usually does this time of year, evidently glad she opted to stay instead of visiting home. Joly doesn’t blame her; his family is hurtful but not malicious, where hers just picks her to pieces. “Welcome back. I made pomegranate stew and there’s some fresh bread. Glass of wine? I’ve got a good shiraz.”

“That actually sounds great,” Joly says, going to kiss her cheek. “I’m going to be terribly unfancy and change into pajamas and warm socks first.”

“Uh, dude, pajama dinners are the best dinners,” Grantaire retorts, kissing his forehead with an extravagant flourish. “Musichetta?”

“Hells yes,” she agrees, unwinding her scarf and hanging it over her coat. “Pajama dinner, then mulled wine and cider cake with a game of cards in a blanket nest.”

“You guys are my favorite,” Joly tells them, entirely earnestly, and trudges back to the bedroom to shower and change into pajamas. Carefully, he unpacks his things, tossing clothes into the laundry hamper and setting gifts on top of the dresser to take care of later. He’s still disappointed, of course he is, and he’s aching and exhausted, and his ribs need to be coaxed carefully back into place.

But he’s home, and that counts for something.

Musichetta and Grantaire don’t push, just fill him in on what they’ve been up to while he’s been gone, and laugh over Combeferre’s video, and Musichetta goes to microwave a couple of the heatpacks when she notices the way Joly keeps fidgeting. “Fuck families, though,” Grantaire says, and Joly slings an arm around her shoulder. They also both curl up in bed with him that night, and Joly falls asleep under the blanket of their unquestioning belief in him.

In the morning, after rolling his shoulders back into place and nursing a cup of tea balanced on his sore knee, Joly calls Bossuet and tells him what happened. Bossuet offers with immediate kindness to come home early, but Joly shakes his head, promises that he’s fine, that he wants Bossuet to spend the time with his family, who he doesn’t get to see near enough for how close they are. And Bossuet accepts that, but also stays on the line longer just to trade puns until Joly cracks and giggles.

It makes it easier, after, to call Céline and talk to her, too. He can hear the pauses before she speaks, the way her mouth must crease like their mother’s, but she’s gentle about it in the end. She doesn’t get it, Joly knows, but she’s trying to believe him, and that’s got to be enough for now.

He sprawls across the couch after they hang up and sighs. It feels like an overreaction to cut his parents off, to stop speaking to them entirely. But he’s so sick of trying, doesn’t know how many more visits or conversations or years he can keep up the two-strikes-and-done policy, a battle to enforce every time.

Joly twists his foot about, hoping to feel the subluxated joint somewhere along the arch slip back into place so that walking doesn’t hurt so unbearably for the rest of the day.

Maybe he should just leave the ball in their court for now. It will hurt if they don’t get in touch, it will hurt if they do. But for all that they love him, are proud of his accomplishments and fond of his humor, they’re unkind and unfair about the fact he’s disabled. So. Joly isn’t going to try, and it will go where it will go. The thought makes his eyes sting, but it’s not as bad at the vise crushing his ribs and heart yesterday. He takes a deep breath, and runs through his ankle-strengthening exercises, tracing each letter of the alphabet in the air with his toes.

“Still want to invite anyone in town over for New Year’s?” Grantaire asks when she emerges from the bedroom, using just one crutch so she can carry over a cup of coffee. Joly shifts his legs to make space for her, and she gratefully drops down, setting her cup on the coffee table first.

He nods, unsurprised when she leans over against him. “Yeah, it sounds like a blast. It’ll be nice!”

“Cool. ‘Chetta’s taking a shower, but she’ll be out in a few. Wanna go get brunch after?”

That’s the nice thing about Grantaire: she won’t make him talk if he doesn’t want to. And it’s not that Joly can’t, just that he’s still settling everything with himself. He’ll probably tell them at brunch.

“It’d be a brunch of fun,” Joly replies, then stifles a yawn, rolling his ankles and letting them crack again. “Mmn, I’ll make one more quick cup of tea, then.”

Musichetta, as always, is amenable to the idea of brunch, and they troop out into the cold, and it’s a good day. They trade stories and puns and charm Matelote and Gibelote by bringing them tins of Musichetta’s aunt’s madeleines. The Corinthe is quiet, and Madame Houcheloupe is fond of them, to the point of sitting with them for the span of a cup of coffee and a chat.

They while away the next couple of days, running errands and catching up on the things that fall by the wayside during semesters. This year’s core Amis de l’ABC group end of year party has been pushed back until early in January, so Joly and Musichetta head out to take advantage of sales for the last few gifts they haven’t sorted out yet. Grantaire, who tends to hoard things throughout the year, waves them off and goes to cavort at Floréal’s work party.

It’s a successful trip, all in all, and they come back laden down with more bags than they really meant to. Joly’s ankles ache even after he puts on his braces, a loose pair of socks over that for warmth, but he thinks it’s worth it for the small spark of festive cheer that it rekindles.

Still, the quiet, vague fog of disappointment and hurt lingers. It perches on his shoulders the next day as they clean the house, even when Bossuet sends his text confirming what time he’ll be in that evening.

He does his best to brush past it, and it helps that there aren’t many people in town at the moment, so it should be a relatively quiet, for them, and intimate gathering.  Combeferre, Jehan, and Enjolras are all still off visiting their families, and Marius, apparently overwhelmed by Courfeyrac’s horde of family, has apparently opted to stay home tonight.

When Courfeyrac shows up, the first one there, fresh from the south and bringing back a few bottles of wine allotted from his family’s cellars, Joly greets him just as cheerfully in return. He can’t help smiling either, when Courfeyrac goes off to start a good-natured argument with Grantaire about the finer points of regional custom.

Feuilly walked over with him, and gratefully accepts a glass and a hug from Musichetta before he joins Joly on the couch. “Oof, long day.”

“At least you have tonight to make up for it, and tomorrow to sleep it off?” Joly offers, smiling.

“Cheers,” Feuilly agrees, lifting his glass and tapping it against Joly’s, his warm face creasing in a smile, tired but heartfelt. “Oh! I saw a cat today!”

“Pictures?” Joly asks eagerly, perking up when Feuilly nods and draping himself along Feuilly’s shoulder to get a better view. They digress from cats to more abstract philosophical discussions of cultural perspectives, the way they often do, the reassuring tumult from the kitchen steady under Grantaire, Courfeyrac, and Musichetta having another emphatic discussion about high fantasy. Even if the kitchen hadn’t already been full to bursting, Joly would have stayed out of it – he’s got an uncanny talent for making last minute catches of sharp utensils (muscle spasms and sporadically failing grip will do that), but he’s got no talent for actual cooking. Chatting with a Feuilly whose attention isn’t split five different ways sounds like a _much_ nicer way to spend his time.

Bossuet tumbles in next, cheeks flushed red after the cold, outerwear all in disarray but beaming and buried under bags. He’s dusted with snow, too, victim to an unpredicted spell of it. “I’m home!”

Joly braces himself on the arm of the couch and hurries over, hand half-raised in case he needs to brace against the wall, and meets Bossuet effortlessly just as rises from setting his bags down. Bossuet’s arms fold around him securely, and he squeezes extra firmly, careful of Joly’s ribs but a welcome reassurance, and Joly doesn’t even mind the cold and wet of the snow between them.

“Welcome home! Three-way-hug!” Musichetta cheers, bounding in from the kitchen and latching her arms around their waists, head dipping to press against theirs.

They stay like that for a long moment, too serene and in too perfect familiarity to need words, just pressing in tighter and closer.

“I love you guys,” Joly finds himself saying. “So much.”

“Love you too,” they chorus, and then Musichetta leans up to kiss Bossuet’s cheek. He beams at her, then steals kisses from both of them.

“Okay,” Bossuet finally declares, breaking away. “I need some drier clothes and then I have to give my brie to the kitchen crew before you all mutiny.”

“It would brie a shame if that happened.” Joly smiles at him charmingly, delighted at the chuckles that earns him.

Musichetta snorts, but there’s a smile lurking around the corners of her mouth as well. “I won’t get in your whey, and I’ll try to keep Grantaire from being curd with you.”

“If you don’t rind being patient for a moment,” Bossuet shoots back favoring them with another grin before collecting his luggage. He detours to greet everyone else, though, and only then retreats to the bedroom.

Joly settles back in beside Feuilly, picking up their conversation with an apologetic smile that Feuilly waves off. Musichetta joins them this time, saying that Courfeyrac and Grantaire have the kitchen more than covered, especially once Bahorel shows up.

Of course she’s proven right, because as soon as Bahorel bursts in, both he and Cosette – who’s begged off from her family for the evening – have their arms full.

“Bahorel!” Courfeyrac cries, not even bothering to come out of the kitchen. “Did you bring those pears you promised us?”

“Courfeyrac!” Bahorel bellows back apparently just for the fun of it, tossing a wave and a cheerful smile at the rest of them as he heads into the kitchen.

Cosette removes her coat more sedately, after gratefully handing off her bag to Musichetta. “Hello, all of you! Éponine texted me, she says she’s finally on her way, and that we’re allowed appetizers but aren’t allowed to start dinner without her.”

“I think we can manage that!” Musichetta replies, laughing, as she goes to fetch the corkscrew and another handful of glasses, bumping fists with Bossuet on his way out into the living room.

“Still plenty of room on the sofa,” Feuilly offers, and Cosette gratefully avails herself of the space, Bossuet perching on the edge of the arm rest and propping his elbow on the back of the couch.

“I’m glad there is,” Cosette starts, “because I’ve been wanting to ask you about this article I read online, and now I’ve finally got you at my mercy.”

Bossuet leans in to listen, too, but his hand rests affectionately on Joly’s shoulder, and Joly reaches up to pat his arm with equal fondness.

Joly’s still a little quiet, quieter than normal, but they’re content to let him listen more than anything. It’s not the same sort of hurt, though. Not really. He’s just so _fond_ of them all.

That’s it, really, he thinks, watching the flurry of hands and laughter beside him, still half-paying attention to the sudden caroling from the kitchen and the rhythm of knives chopping underneath it. The room is warm and bright and full of happy, caring people who love one another very much.

Who love _him_ very much.

And so, Joly decides abruptly, hiding a smile with a sip from his glass, that makes it _okay_. It’s okay if his parents never come around, if he doesn’t put the effort into explaining endlessly, if they never understand or even if they do. Because he has friends, a _family_ , who understand and who love him unconditionally, and they _get it_. They get _him_.

Maybe they won’t always be perfect, and Joly knows he won’t always be perfect, but that’s fine. They’ll still walk at his pace or offer to bring him ibuprofen from the cupboard or bring him lunch when he’s too tired to cook anything. They’ll still respect him, no matter what.

His ribs still ache but breathing comes a little easier.

For now, he has a party to enjoy.


End file.
